The Cabin Part 18

How unfortunate he was! Alone against all! He would find the little fellow dead when he returned to the farm; the horse which was his livelihood made useless by those traitors; trouble coming on him from every direction, surging up from the roads, from the houses, from the cane-brakes, profiting by all occasions to wound him and his; and he defenceless, could not protect himself from these enemies who vanished the moment, weary of suffering, he tried to turn on them.

Lord! what had he done to deserve such sufferings? Was he not an honest man?

He felt himself more and more crushed by grief. Unable to move he remained seated on the bank; his enemies might come; he had not even the strength to pick up the musket that lay at his feet.

Over the road resounded the slow tolling of a bell which filled the darkness with mysterious vibrations. Batiste thought of his little boy, of the poor "Bishop" who probably had died by now. Perhaps that sweet chime was made by the angels who came down from heaven to bear the child's soul away; and who unable to find his farm were flying over the _huerta_. If only the others did not remain, those who needed the strength of his arm to support them!... The poor man longed for annihilation; he thought of the happiness of leaving down there on that bank, that ugly body, the life of which it cost him so much to sustain, and embracing the innocent little soul of his boy, of flying away like the blessed ones whom he had seen guided by angels in the paintings of the church.

The chimes seemed to approach and dark figures which his tear-wet eyes could not distinguish pa.s.sed by on the road. He felt some one touch him with the end of a stick and, raising his head, he saw a solitary figure, a kind of spectre leaning toward him.

And he recognized old Tomba, the only one of the _huerta_ to whom he owed no suffering.

The shepherd, considered as a sorcerer, possessed the amazing intuition of the blind. Scarcely had he recognized Batiste when he seemed to understand all his misfortune. He felt with his stick the musket lying at his feet, and turned his head, as though looking for Pimento's farm in the darkness.

He spoke slowly, with a quiet sadness, like a man accustomed to the miseries of a world which he must soon leave. He divined that Batiste was weeping.

"My son ... my son...."

He had expected everything that had occurred. He had warned him the first day when he saw him settled on the accursed lands. They would bring him misfortune.

He had just pa.s.sed by Batiste's farm and had seen lights through the open door ... he had heard cries of despair; the dog was howling ... the little boy had died, hadn't he? And he yonder, thinking he was seated on a bank, when in reality he sat with one foot in prison. Thus men are lost and their families broken up. He would end with some mad and foolish murder, like poor Barret, and would die like him, in prison. It was inevitable; those lands were cursed by the poor and could give forth only accursed fruits.

And muttering his terrible prophecies, the shepherd went his way behind his sheep on the village road, advising poor Batiste to leave also, and go away, very far away, where he could earn his bread without having to struggle against the hatred of the poor. And now invisible, shrouded in the shadows, Batiste still heard his slow, sad voice which made him shudder:

"Believe me, my son ... they will bring you misfortune!"

VIII

Batiste and his family did not realize how the unheard-of, unexpected event began; who was the first who decided to pa.s.s the bridge that joined the road to the hated fields.

In the farm-house they were in no condition to notice such details.

Exhausted with suffering, they saw that the people of the _huerta_ had suddenly begun to come to them, and they did not protest, for misfortune needs counsel, nor did they offer thanks for the unexpected impulse to approach.

The news of the little boy's death had been transmitted through all the neighbourhood with the strange swiftness with which all news spreads in the _huerta_, flying from farm to farm on the wings of scandal, which is the swiftest of all telegraphs.

Many slept poorly that night. It seemed as though the little boy, as he departed, had left a thorn fixed in the consciences of the neighbours.

More than one woman tossed about in bed, disturbing with her restlessness her husband's sleep, making him protest indignantly. "But curse you! will you go to sleep?..." No, she couldn't; that child prevented her from sleeping. Poor little fellow! What would he tell the Lord when he reached Heaven?

All shared the responsibility of that death, but each one with hypocritical egotism attributed to his neighbour the chief blame for the bitter persecution whose consequences had fallen on the little fellow's head; each gossiping woman blamed her enemy for the deed. And at last she went to sleep with the intention of undoing all the evil done, of going in the morning to offer her aid to the family, of weeping over the poor child; and amid the mists of sleep they thought they saw Pascualet, as white and resplendent as an angel, looking with reproachful eyes at those who had been so hard with him and his family.

All the people of the neighbourhood rose meditating as to how they could approach and enter Batiste's house. It was an examination of conscience, an explosion of repentance which burst on the poor farm-house from every end of the plain.

It had scarcely dawned when two old women who lived in a neighbouring farm-house entered Batiste's home. The family, crushed with grief, felt almost no wonder at seeing those two women appear in the house which no one had entered for more than six months. They wanted to see the child, the poor little "Bishop," and entering the bedroom they gazed at him still lying there in the bed; the edge of the sheet pulled up to his chin scarcely outlining the shape of his body, his blond head inert and heavy on the pillow. The mother could only weep in her corner, all shrunken and crouched together, as small as a child, as though she were trying to annihilate herself and disappear.

After these women came others and still others; it was a stream of weeping old women who arrived from all parts of the plain; surrounding the bed, they kissed the little corpse and seemed to take possession of him as their own, leaving Teresa and her daughter aside; the latter, exhausted by lack of sleep and weeping, seemed imbecile as they hung their red and tear-wet faces on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Batiste, seated in a rush-chair, in the middle of the farm-house, gazed stupidly at that procession of people who had so ill-treated him. He did not hate them, but neither did he feel grat.i.tude. He had come forth from the crisis of the day before crushed, and he gazed at all this with indifference, as though the farm-house were not his, as though the poor little fellow on the bed were not his son.

Only the dog curling up at his feet seemed to remember and feel hatred: he sniffed hostilely at all the procession of petticoats that came and went, and growled as though he wanted to bite and only refrained from doing so in order not to displease his masters.

The young people shared the dog's resentment. Batistet scowled at all those old women who had made fun of him so often when he pa.s.sed before their houses, and he took refuge in the stable so as not to lose sight of the poor horse, whom he was curing according to the instructions of the veterinary, called in the night before. He was very fond of his little brother; but death has no remedy, and what he was anxious about now was that the horse should not be permanently lame.

The two little ones, pleased in their hearts at a misfortune which attracted to their house the attention of the whole plain, kept watch over the door, barring the way to the small boys who like bands of sparrows arrived by all roads and paths with morbid and excited curiosity to see the little body of the dead child. Now _their_ turn had come; now _they_ were the masters. And with the courage of those who are in their own homes, they threatened and drove away some and let others enter, giving them their favour according to the treatment they had received from them in the b.l.o.o.d.y vicissitudes of their peregrinations on their way home from school.... Rascals! There were even some who insisted on entering after having played a part in the battle during which poor Pascualet had fallen into the ca.n.a.l, thus catching the illness which had been his death.

The appearance of a weak, pale little woman seemed to bring suddenly on the whole family a host of painful recollections. It was Pepeta, Pimento's wife! Even she came!

An impulse of protestation came over both Batiste and his wife. But to what purpose? Welcome, and if she entered to enjoy their misfortune, she could laugh as much as she wished. There they were all inert, crushed by grief. G.o.d, the all-seeing, would give to every one his deserts.

But Pepeta went straight to the bed, pushing the other women aside. She bore in her arms an enormous bunch of flowers and leaves which she spread out upon the bed. The first perfumes of the nascent springtime spread through the room which smelled of medicine, and in whose heavy atmosphere insomnia and sighs of desperation seemed to be inhaled.

Pepeta, the poor beast of burden, dead for maternity though married with the hope of becoming a mother, lost her calm on seeing that little marble face, framed in the turned-back hair as in a nimbus of gold.

"My son!... my poor little boy!"

And she wept with all her soul, as she bent over the little corpse, barely grazing with her lips the pale, cold brow, as though she feared to awaken him.

On hearing her sobs, Batiste and his wife raised their heads in astonishment. They knew now that she was a good woman: _he_ was the bad one. And a mother's and father's grat.i.tude shone in their eyes.

Batiste even trembled when he saw how poor Pepeta embraced Teresa and her daughter, and mingled her tears with theirs. No; here was no duplicity. She herself was a victim; that was why she could understand the misfortunes of others who were also victims.

The little woman wiped away her tears, and became again the brave, strong woman accustomed to the labour of a beast of burden to keep up her house. She cast an amazed glance around. Things could not stay like that. The child in the bed and everything in disorder! The "Bishop" must be laid out for his last journey, he must be dressed in white, pure and resplendent as the dawn, whose name he bore.

And with the instinct of a superior being born for practical life, with the power of imposing obedience on others, she began to give orders to all the women who vied in doing some service for the family they had hitherto cursed so vehemently.

She would go to Valencia with two companions to buy the shroud and the coffin. Others went to the village, or scattered about among the neighbouring farm-houses in search of the objects which Pepeta charged them to procure.

Even the hateful Pimento who remained invisible, had to contribute to these preparations. His wife met him on the road and ordered him to look for some musicians for the evening. They were, like himself, vagabonds and drunkards; he would certainly find them at Copa's. And the bully, who seemed preoccupied that day, listened to his wife's words without reply and endured the imperious tone in which she spoke to him, gazing down at the ground as though ashamed.

Since the previous night he felt himself transformed. That man who had defied and insulted him and kept him shut up in his own house like a timid hen; his wife, who for the first time had imposed her will upon him and taken his musket away; his lack of courage to face his victim, who was wholly in the right; all these reasons kept him confused and crushed.

He was no longer the Pimento of other days; he began to know himself and even to suspect that all the things done against Batiste and his family amounted to a crime. There even came a moment when he despised himself.

What a man he was!... All the mean tricks of himself and the other neighbours had served only to take the life of a poor child. And as was his custom in dark days, when some trouble made him frown, he marched off to the tavern, seeking the consolations that Copa kept in his famous wine-barrel in the corner.

At ten in the morning, when Pepeta and her two companions returned from the city, the house was filled with people.

Some men who were very slow and heavy and domestic, who had taken little part in the crusade against the strangers, formed a group with Batiste in the door of the farm-house; some squatting, in Moorish fashion, others seated in rush-chairs, smoking and speaking slowly of the weather and the crops.

Inside, women and more women, pressing around the bed, deafening the mother with their talk; some speaking of the sons they had lost, others installed in corners as though they were in their own homes, gossiping about all the rumours of the neighbourhood. That day was extraordinary; it made no difference that their houses were dirty and that dinner must be cooked; there was an excuse. The children clinging to their skirts wept and deafened everybody with their cries, some wanting to return home, others begging to be shown the "Bishop."

Some old women took possession of the cupboard and every moment prepared big gla.s.ses of sugared wine and water, offering them to Teresa and her daughter so they could weep more comfortably, and when the poor creatures, swollen by this sugary inundation, declined to drink, the officious old gossips took turns in swallowing the refreshments themselves, for they also needed to recover from their sorrow.

Pepeta began to shout, desirous of inspiring respect in this confusion.

"Go away, all of you!" Instead of staying here and bothering people, they ought to take the two poor women away with them, for they were exhausted with sorrow and driven crazy by so much noise.

Teresa objected to abandoning her son even for a short time; she would soon see him no more; they should not steal from her any of the time that remained to her to look upon her treasure. And bursting out into even greater lamentations, she threw herself on the cold corpse, wishing to embrace it.